Wellbores are drilled through subsurface formations to extract useful fluids, such as hydrocarbons, from one or more producing zones. Once drilled, a liner can be run-in-hole (RIH), and cement can be pumped into the annulus formed between the liner and the wellbore wall. Once the cement sets, one or more perforating guns can be lowered through the liner on a slickline, wireline, or work string proximate a first zone in the formation. The perforating guns can be fired to create radial openings in the liner, thereby forming a path of fluid communication between an inner bore in the liner and the first zone in the formation. Once the openings are created, the perforating guns can pulled back to the surface, and hydraulic fracturing can take place in the first zone.
After the first zone has been fractured, a plug can be lowered down and positioned in the liner above the first zone. One or more perforating guns can also be lowered down and positioned above the plug, proximate a second zone in the formation. As with the first zone, the perforating guns can disconnect and fire to create radial openings in the liner to form a path of fluid communication between the inner bore in the liner and the second zone. The perforating guns can then be pulled back to the surface, and hydraulic fracturing can take place in the second zone. This process can be repeated for multiple zones within the wellbore.
To treat thick producing zones, long guns are used, and their weight requires the guns to be lowered in the wellbore via a work string. The use of a work string to conduct any well intervention takes more time than with a wireline and becomes very costly in deep wells in deep water. The raising and lowering of the work string and associated components, can contribute to the fracturing process taking between ten and fifteen days per zone. As such, a wellbore having multiple zones can take weeks or even months before production begins. What is needed, therefore, is an improved system and method for fracturing multiple zones in a wellbore.